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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29914041">O Death</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/edddeployed/pseuds/edddeployed'>edddeployed</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - World War II, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Romantic Relationship If You Squint, i wish this couldve been longer but my brain said no ❤️, i wrote this in an hour please dont kill me for inaccuracies 😀, no beta we die</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 20:13:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>758</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29914041</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/edddeployed/pseuds/edddeployed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>August 22nd, 1942, Stalingrad.<br/>The Battle of Stalingrad is about to devolve into one of the most brutal hand-to-hand fights the world has ever seen.<br/>The Red Army don’t know this, however, and a pair of Soviets sit against a wall together.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>No Romantic Relationship(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>O Death</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>life has been kicking my ass recently and i suddenly got a burst of inspiration from watching stalingrad 1993</p><p>follow me on tumblr @edddeployed<br/>requests open!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The stench of corpses has become almost normal for the troops in Stalingrad. Though, Timur will never become accustomed to it. Nothing is ever normal here. He has become almost exclusively a mouth-breather, although it makes almost no difference. The smell of the long dead haunt his dreams.</p><p>And, he’s been having many more dreams lately, he notices. Though they are mostly filled with the screaming of trapped civilians and soldiers alike, the squeal of dropping bombs, and the ra-ta-ta of machine guns, some are almost peaceful. </p><p>In some, he’s back in Vladivostok, painting with a view of the Pacific, or hopping on the Trans-Siberian to visit an old friend, or walking along the streets with his mother, hand in hand. And in others he is younger, skipping school with his friends to play kickball or stomping around in the fresh, shallow snow of early winter.</p><p>But here, there is no ocean, no mother. Here, there is only the exposed steel skeletons of factories, piles of bodies towered high enough to loom over the living, the bloodstained ground, and shallow trenches. Here, death lurks, slinks around in the gloom like a skin-and-bones cat.</p><p>“Close your mouth, you look stupid,” Maxim says, sitting down beside him, leaning his head against the brick wall. </p><p>Timur hesitantly clicks his teeth together and replies with nothing, continuing with sketching in his small journal. It’s a miracle that thing had survived as long as it had.</p><p>It was a rare moment of ceasefire. They sit in comfortable silence, as they most often do. Maxim never asks what’s in Timur’s journal (as many others do), and Timur never asks why Maxim has an obsession with knives (as the same others do too). A symbiosis, if you will.</p><p>Maxim and Timur had actually met a year before the war, in the summer of 1938. They were dancing partners in a bar in Moscow after someone suggested a dance session set to some American jazz. Although, they were both too drunk to remember each other’s faces. But for now, they were strangers who idly talked.</p><p>“Do you know that nice man, Aleksandr? The one who gave us his rations?” Maxim questioned, breaking the silence of the dusk.</p><p>“What about him?” Timur’s small pencil, running out of lead, scratched along the sheet of paper.</p><p>“He was a casualty today. And that Uzbek, too, the tall one,”</p><p>Timur hummed out a small, solemn sound. “A shame,”</p><p>“One day, we will be a casualty, too,”</p><p>“I know,”</p><p>“Are you okay with that?”</p><p>“Not really,”</p><p>“Neither am I,”</p><p>Silence fell again. Maxim started humming a familiar tune. </p><p>“I recognize that music,” Timur turned to Maxim. “Where’s it from?”</p><p>“Heard it in some bar somewhere,” Maxim said, polishing his bayonet with a scrap of cloth.</p><p>“So have I,”</p><p>“What a strange coincidence,” Maxim said dryly, and neither thought to question further. </p><p>The sky was beginning to darken, from yellow to orange to purple to blue like an aging bruise. Stars were beginning to spot the bruised sky, like веснушки, summer freckles. Timur never had freckles himself, but he noticed Maxim did. Perhaps, if he looked close enough, he would find constellations. But it was too dark now.</p><p>“Let’s sleep,” Maxim suggested. “Prepare for whatever shit the немцы pull tomorrow.”</p><p>Timur nodded. Somewhere close by, he could hear the hushed talking of fellow comrades, also hidden behind brick walls, carried on the late summer breeze.</p><p>The ground was much to rough with debris from collapsed buildings to lay down, and the position was far too vulnerable. Instead, most preferred to sleep leaning up against a wall or each other. However sharp of shoulder, a comrade was a much better pillow than brick.</p><p>Maxim slumped against him, the full weight of a ninety kilogram, hungry, barely-a-man against his shoulder. He still clutched his gun in his hands, bayonet glinting in the final light.</p><p>Timur eventually let himself lean against the other, though he had difficulty closing his eyes. In the distance, he thought he heard the sound of German artillery, but since there were no shouts or explosions he figured it was a figment of his imagination. </p><p>“Goodnight, друг,” Timur whispered, though he received no response, and Maxim’s breathing had already leveled out.</p><p> </p><p>The following night, both barely-men would be lost to the war machine, lost in the haze of gunfire and blood splatters and the gleam of bayonets, just another body that death laid her cruel cold hands upon.</p><p>The stench of corpses has become almost normal for the troops in Stalingrad.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>😀</p><p>follow me on tumblr @edddeployed<br/>requests open!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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